Yoram Hazony

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Yoram Hazony is Provost and co-founder of the Shalem Center and the author of several books on Israel.

History

Hazony received his B.A from Princeton University where he met Daniel Polisar and Joshua Weinstein with whom he went on to found the Shalem Center in 1994. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University.

He worked as president and senior fellow in the Department of Philosophy, Political Theory, and Religion until becoming provost and director of its project in Jewish philosophical theology.[1]

According to an article in Haaretz, Hazony is a former confidant of Benjamin Netanyahu, helped him research his book "A Place Among the Nations." and edited Netanyahu's 1995 work "Fighting Terrorism". It is also claimed that through Netanyahu Hazony became a member of the Israeli delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference and assisted Netanyahu in his campaign for the Likud leadership in 1993.[2]

In the late 1980s he reportedly moved with his wife Yael, chief editor of Shalem Press at the Shalem Center, to the settlement of Eli in the northern West Bank. In October 2000 when the al-Aqsa intifada began he decided it was unsafe to live beyond the Green Line and the Tikvah Fund, the Shalem Center's main funders, are said to have paid for apartments in Jerusalem.[3]

Views

On Rabbi Meir Kahan

According to Haaretz an encounter with the ultranationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane in 1984, while a student at Princeton, greatly influenced Hazony. In a 1990 obituary of Kahane, whose racist party had been barred from running for the Knesset in the 1988 elections, Hazony wrote: "[We express] gratitude to someone who changed our lives, thrilled and entertained us, helped us grow up into strong, Jewish men and women." However he also adds "Many of us found other ways of doing what he asked", distancing himself from Kahane's violent tendencies.[4]

On Israeli education

In his book, "The Jewish State," Hazony blames the Israeli intellectual elite for what he believes to be its role in minimizing the traditional Zionist narrative in the Israeli school system.[5] He is reported to have said of the Shalem Center's project to create Israel's first liberal arts college, Shalem College:

"If my university is not established...Zionism will have no future, the Jewish people will have no future and, I dare to say, the West will have no future, either."[6]

Affiliations

Publications

Resources

Notes

  1. Yoram Hazony biography, Shalem Center, accessed June 18 2012
  2. Na'ama Lanski, Daphna Berman, Storm in a Neo-con teapot, Haaretz, accessed 18 June 2012
  3. Na'ama Lanski, Daphna Berman, Storm in a Neo-con teapot, Haaretz, accessed 18 June 2012
  4. Na'ama Lanski, Daphna Berman, Storm in a Neo-con teapot, Haaretz, accessed 18 June 2012
  5. Na'ama Lanski, Daphna Berman, Storm in a Neo-con teapot, Haaretz, accessed 18 June 2012
  6. Na'ama Lanski, Daphna Berman, Storm in a Neo-con teapot, Haaretz, accessed 18 June 2012